AT&T Sells Your Phone Use Data To The Police

[HardOCP News]

I sure need to brush up on the law because none of this seems legal at all. I know the EFF, Electronic Privacy Information Center and the ACLU have all said this is unconstitutionally invasive but how come nothing has been done about it yet?

However, AT&T’s own documentation—reported here by The Daily Beast for the first time—shows Hemisphere was used far beyond the war on drugs to include everything from investigations of homicide to Medicaid fraud. Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.

 

[Gorankar]

Execute them.

 

[Prisoner849]

We are far past "Orwellian" and moving more towards the Matrix. We indeed fuel the machines.

 

[Stryker7314]

I am fully expecting a $25 class action check.

My privacy has a price, and historically it's been worth 25 bucks

 

[Nobified[H]]

I sure need to brush up on the law because none of this seems legal at all. I know the EFF, Electronic Privacy Information Center and the ACLU have all said this is unconstitutionally invasive but how come nothing has been done about it yet?

However, AT&T’s own documentation—reported here by The Daily Beast for the first time—shows Hemisphere was used far beyond the war on drugs to include everything from investigations of homicide to Medicaid fraud. Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.

It will come, people will just simply stop using their phones. I am almost there, tired of it and being forced tons of information. I would rather go out in the desert and call in coyotes.

 

[oROEchimaru]

It will come, people will just simply stop using their phones. I am almost there, tired of it and being forced tons of information. I would rather go out in the desert and call in coyotes.

Thats called old age. We are screwed

 

[DrLobotomy]

Phone company has been doing this for many, many decades. Nothing is safe. You just need to make a ripple in the wrong pond and poof, they are telling you about stuff you don't even remember.

Talk about an .mp3 collection. You know they store every conversation.

 

[Nobified[H]]

Phone company has been doing this for many, many decades. Nothing is safe. You just need to make a ripple in the wrong pond and poof, they are telling you about stuff you don't even remember.

Talk about an .mp3 collection. You know they store every conversation.

Where is my $25 dollar check?

 

[DrLobotomy]

The Po-Po have it locked up in the evidence storage room.

 

[Airbrushkid]

To many people in this country that are naive. They think there is nothing wrong and or don't care.

 

[dgz]

They did have Room 641A which only got revealed by a former technician. I still find it fascinating even the americans didn't riot. We're all doomed. Almost no one around me cares about this stuff.

 

[umeng2002]

Not shocking in this day and age... Just proves a point that the government goes through illegal (although not totally in this case due to the dumb 3nd party doctrine) and/ or covert gathering techniques to acquirer "legal" evidence.

I like how AT&T literally sells out their customers...

Looks like I might keep Comcast as my ISP instead of getting AT&T fiber.

AT&T is gone as my cellphone company once my contract is up... been a customer since 2004 too... oh well for them.

 

[Gweenz]

Pay taxes, pay your phone bill, phone company sells your data to government entity. Yep, sounds like 2016 to me.

 

[Comixbooks]

Pokemon Go usage goes to the PD good deal...

 

[Mugato]

Not shocking in this day and age... Just proves a point that the government goes through illegal (although not totally in this case due to the dumb 3nd party doctrine) and/ or covert gathering techniques to acquirer "legal" evidence.

I like how AT&T literally sells out their customers...

Looks like I might keep Comcast as my ISP instead of getting AT&T fiber.

AT&T is gone as my cellphone company once my contract is up... been a customer since 2004 too... oh well for them.

I'm thinking very strongly about this as well. 50 lines.

 

[Incontentia Buttocks]

What everyone might want to consider is that your phone is not a "phone"- it's a radio transceiver. You want better (not perfect) privacy? Get a landline.

 

[raz-0]

Personally, I welcome the automation of this shit. It needs to accelerate.

At that point, two things will happen.
1) Inherent laziness will mean that if it isn't in the automated info gathering pile, it simply will be treated as not existing.
2) Exceptions for the special people will be coded in instead of being handled by people. At which point that poorly protected workaround will be hacked and sold to whoever wants it. Or susceptible to even lower tech hacks.


Hey, the ticket writing cameras don't ticket the senate/assembly license plates. Photoshop up a senate license plate and tear ass everywhere all night. Ditch it for the daytime commute.. move on. (currently in my state, they still have a human pulling the exceptions, but how long will that last, and how much of a shit does that guy even give at this point anyway?).

Oh, you are going to use automatic plate reading systems? let me just whip up some fake plates and rent a similar make and model car, and then whoever I want gets tracked form point A to point B.

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

They did have Room 641A which only got revealed by a former technician. I still find it fascinating even the americans didn't riot. We're all doomed. Almost no one around me cares about this stuff.

Not shocking in this day and age... Just proves a point that the government goes through illegal (although not totally in this case due to the dumb 3nd party doctrine) and/ or covert gathering techniques to acquirer "legal" evidence.

I like how AT&T literally sells out their customers...

Looks like I might keep Comcast as my ISP instead of getting AT&T fiber.

AT&T is gone as my cellphone company once my contract is up... been a customer since 2004 too... oh well for them.

I'm thinking very strongly about this as well. 50 lines.

There is not one single communications company who doesn't feed data to the authorities. If it isn't sold or given, it is taken. This has been the case for decades and will never change. If you want privacy, talk only in person with a signal jammer in your pocket.

 

[Ur_Mom]

What everyone might want to consider is that your phone is not a "phone"- it's a radio transceiver. You want better (not perfect) privacy? Get a landline.

I think what they are doing is very wrong. On the other hand, you know they are doing it. So, the bad guys (at least the big bad guys) are using other means for communication. This works on the little guy no problem.

You want to be secure? Use a secure method of communication, or at least the most secure you can get... Nothing is 100%, but when one method is compromised, it's 0% and time to move to something a little better.

What sucks is that it's happening and has been happening. "If it saves just one life... think of the children...." will keep the masses in check.

 

[umeng2002]

There is not one single communications company who doesn't feed data to the authorities. If it isn't sold or given, it is taken. This has been the case for decades and will never change. If you want privacy, talk only in person with a signal jammer in your pocket.

Yes, but AT&T is making it into a product instead of begrudgingly responding to it from a warrant or court order. Their first thought is to make it as easy as possible for government spying instead of protecting their consumer base. Their desire to keep it a secret means they're scared of consumers running away from them if they found out.

 

[LurkerLito]

I sure need to brush up on the law because none of this seems legal at all. I know the EFF, Electronic Privacy Information Center and the ACLU have all said this is unconstitutionally invasive but how come nothing has been done about it yet?

It's most likely legal because AT&T made you sign a contract that let's them do it. It's not unconstitutional because the contract that people signed but never read (and a ToS is a legal contract) removes that constitutional protection of privacy. There are only a few rights people are actually guaranteed that the SCOTUS won't let you sign away in a contract. Privacy is not one of those things. The basic idea is you agreed to let AT&T spy on you not the government, but you also allowed AT&T to sell your data to others and their biggest customer is the government. There is no government violation of the constitution because they weren't the ones who spied on you.

This is the same EXACT reason a lot of people have a problem with MS data collecting in Win 10. It's not about "what you have to hide?" it's about "why do you want to be in their database for all time even though you did NOTHING wrong?" You are one bad pointer, memory error, corrupt hard disk sector, human error, similar habits of some other person from being put on a watch list.

 

[ShootSomeMore]

The police have a machine. That pairs your phone and copies all of your information for the last 24 hours. There is a version of this machine when you buy a new phone that pairs your contacts